Monday, March 11, 2013

Tensivolae I: The More Things Change...

It seems like every post I've made about nereophytes has begun with a
mention of the time it's taken to get through the group. I admit that
these groups of plants could be done faster, but I have also been
wrapping up the last semester of my university studies. I've graduated
now, but I've had enough time afterward to realize that that's no
indication that I'll have more time on my hands. I'm adjusting from the
lifestyle of the (seemingly perpetual) student to that of a licensed
educator, with all of the job hunting, bureaucracy, and hard work that
that implies. Compound that with the fact that the next group of
nereophytes is a large one, and it will be some time before I come back
to this blog to post about them.
Ah well, we have others to talk about right now...

In my last post I focused largely on the artistic representations of the featured genera of Erepofursia,
both in terms of illustrative clarity and in technical skill. While I
feel that this batch is an improvement I also want to point out that
some of the images turned out to be a little sparser than I had
originally intended. Bare soil is commonly seen in the pictures, and to
be honest I'm not sure if that's because I chose to illustrate only the
featured nereophyte and excluding all others (excluding epiphytes), or
if it's an indication that Nereus may be more sparsely vegetated than
Earth. I like to think that it's the former, and that the imagination
can fill in the 'empty spaces' with other plants appropriate to the
ecosystem.

This group of nereophytes is really the
first part of the much larger clade Tensivolae. I decided to split the
taxonomic class into two groups, with two orders presented in each.
This is the first, older, and less spectacular pair: Excoria and Radiofolia.
They share characteristics with some of the first nereophytes to
survive on land, and even bear features that make them more familiar to
terrestrial eyes. That realization prompted some serious thought.
While I had intended for nereid plants to be recognizably different from
Earth forms, here I have several that could easily blend in with plants
we find on Earth. I reassure myself by calling it convergence-- after
all, plant shapes are rather effective-- but a part of me can't help but
wonder if I should have tried to come up with more novel forms.

That said, mangrome turned out to be delightfully alien.
While I don't think any single aspect of its design is that different
from what's on Earth, I think the juxtaposition of it all makes it a
very interesting and unique creation. My mind whirls with what kinds
nereids could make homes under the shade of the mangrome, or even within
its labyrinthine trunk.

I didn't expect the ruby yucca to be too alien, since it's largely inspired by yucca plants I saw while vacationing some years in Sedona, Arizona.
These tall stalks would reach from a spiky little bush, topped with
quite visually striking ornamentation. But since I felt like the yuccas
I saw with my own eyes had a surreal alien quality, I figured they
would work well on Nereus deserts too.

As anyone who's seen the ballerina forest page can tell, flakefir has undergone some design changes. The initial design had very little time put into its design, really just slap-shod models
designed to fill the space and give the image of the ballerina forest a
distinct skyline. I didn't want to stray too far from that original
design (I felt I was onto something) but I really wanted to figure it
out with a little more strenuous attention to plausibility. In the end I think it served to make the plant more interesting.

The concept of the razorbush
is a common one, particularly in fictional settings where even the
plants are dangerous. I always wanted to include this kind of plant in
the project as it would cause grief for unwary human explorers in
whatever relevant fictions I hypothetically produce, but I wanted to
make sure that the plant had a plausible enough reason for having sharp,
scything blades. I like to think I came up with something that works,
but as always I'd love to hear feedback.

I always intended old man's ear
to be a fun one. While I think the overall concept is conveyed, may go
back and do a little redesign to it. The plants don't seem like they
could hold very much water, and I always wanted the reproductive 'tufts'
to be a little more whispy lookingPerhaps this is one of the
nereophytes that would benefit from some preliminary design in SketchUp
before final presentation...

Finally, the fleshette
should be familiar to anyone who has been following the Nereus project
over the years. It was a design for a carnivorous plant that I tried
out a long time ago, with people asking why it favors larger prey over
insectoids, like Earth's carnivorous plants. The more spectacular image
of game-hunting plants aside, I had a hard time imagining the
evolutionary pressure for it. What started as a pattern of shooting
barbed seeds into prey so they are carried far away became a method of
dissuading herbivores and even felling prey with toxic darts. The
progression seemed natural enough to me, but what do you think?

Well,
those are the Excoria and Radiofolia. They mark the completion of the
first third of featured nereophytes for the project. Like I said, I'll
be working on the rest of the Tensivolae, but in the meantime feel free to post any questions or comments about these orders.

4 comments:

I read your comments about not necessarily having more time after graduation with interest. I hope you will find time to work on Nereus (otherwise it will turn into a 30 year project like Furaha...).

Anyway, I love your new plants. I had similar problems in designing alien plant forms, and am still thinking about the solution.

As for the sparse plant cover, I would not worry: your illustrations do not attempt to depict a photorealistic landscape, so I did not get the impression that there were too few plants. You often see a similar lack of ground cover in some dinosaur reconstructions (particularly the BBC's Dinosaur Planet of 2011). There I suppose the reason was that grass has not evolved yet. But, given the enormous appetite of sauropods, there must have been plenty of plants, and in a lush environment I cannot believe that most of the ground would stay bare.

I had a lengthy reply to your comment, Sigmund, but it was swallowed by the elusive internet monster. I hope that this one says everything I wanted to say in the last one...

I imagine I'll still have time to work on Nereus, but even if I manage to complete a nereophyte a week it will still be months before I'm done with this next group and will then post in this blog again. Perhaps I should do two blog posts for these next nereophytes...

I'm glad that you enjoy these recent nereophytes, and also glad to hear about your similar thought processes for Furaha's foliage. Based on what's on your website, I can see some convergences that indicate to me that we've tried some similar solutions. For example, the flexibility of Furaha's flare tree you describe is much like the as-yet-unpresented telepinu of Nereus.

I'm content with the current style of my artwork on Nereus, but at some point I want to delve into more photorealistic representations. My artistic skills are almost entirely self-taught, and influenced heavily by art found in comic books and graphic novels. Thus while I hope that my illustrations convey enough detail to paint a picture in the viewer's mind I admit that it is a little 'cartoony'. Again, that's fine for this current iteration, but I'm hoping to expand into other styles as well, and that will take some real work on my part...

I'd heard the same thing about BBC's shows, particularly that they wanted to find filming locations that didn't have grass in them in order to better represent the world in which dinosaurs lived. I would imagine such a decision severely limits where they could film, though. Oh well, that's what makes the imagination such a marvelous and useful device...

There is no reason to fear the plants look too earthly. It may be the norm, at-least in temperate/tropical climates, where this arrangement of plant tissues is most efficient to capture sunlight and gas/minerals exchange through the leaves.

I have followed the example of kelp, sea-weeds belonging to the chromalveolata kingdom, not the plant kingdom. Referring to them as "plants" is a misnomer. Yet, most resemble earthly plants, and reproduce by spores like early plants on Earth.flake-fir's way of growth reminds me of an onion: The outer shell is the dead-old peel. The inner core is the young growth. I have in my garden "Ornithogalum Caudatum" which has hyacinth-like leaves, and the bulb (which grows above the soil) photosynthesizes as well. It is green. Each year it sheds the outer dead layer revealing many small bulbs which you can take and plant.

It is very interesting to trace possible evolutionary paths of sexual reproduction, some may be unlike anything encountered on Earth. Here are three possible pathways worth investigating:- Plants produce spore-bearing fruits, an evolved form of sporangia. Once fruits of two different plant individuals are eaten by an animal, spores inside the guts have a chance to meet and mate, producing a fertilized spore which may grow on the rich dung left over by the animal. The closest thing on Earth to multiply this way: Truffles.- Sporing plants produce male spores or female spores. Female spores remain attached to mother plant until fertilization by a windborne male spore. Fertilized spore detaches and grows into a new plant. (A primitive version of pollination)- Like the second possibility, but the spore remains attached to the mother plant. It grows into a seed, bulb or plantlet which detaches and grows as a new plant.